Desired as Cornerstone, an Injured Jeremy Lin Is Watching the Nets Crumble

Image

Nets point guard Jeremy Lin, right, was sidelined for Sunday’s game because of a nagging hamstring injury. He has played only 12 of 40 games this season.CreditSeth Wenig/Associated Press

By Seth Berkman

Jan. 16, 2017

Entering this season, the Nets’ fifth in Brooklyn, the game the Nets played Sunday against the Houston Rockets could have been viewed as an important milepost on the schedule.

It would be the Nets’ 40th game, just about the midway point of the season. The first-year general manager, Sean Marks, and the first-year coach, Kenny Atkinson, would presumably have determined which players best fit their free-flowing offensive scheme. The Nets’ brain trust would be on its way toward building a foundation that would lift the team out of the predicament it inherited from previous leadership, which forfeited valuable draft picks in grandiose trades.

On a more symbolic note, Sunday would also be Taiwanese Culture Night at Barclays Center, a homage of sorts for Jeremy Lin, the Nets’ top free-agent signing last summer. A scholar of Atkinson’s playbook after spending time together with the Knicks, Lin was going to head the rebuilding effort as the team’s starting point guard, while being a marketing force off the court.

And for months, Asian-American groups did snatch up ticket packages for Sunday in anticipation of watching Lin, a son of immigrants to the United States from Taiwan, take the court as the face of the franchise.

None of that happened.

Instead, the Nets went into the game with a league-worst 8-31 record and a nine-game losing streak. Lin, who signed a three-year deal worth $36 million to join the Nets, was again unable to play, victimized by his second hamstring injury this season.

Not surprisingly, the Nets were walloped, 137-112, as the Rockets exposed many of the flaws that have bedeviled the Nets: poor defense, careless third-quarter play and unstable production from their point guards. Perhaps equally frustrating, the latest defeat was an ugly reminder that it is hard for the Nets to point to any real progress being made.

That is partly because Lin has played so little. He missed 17 games after injuring his hamstring early in the season and has missed 10 more since reinjuring it in late December. In between those absences, back tightness sidelined him for one game.

Image

The Nets had long ago designated Sunday as Taiwanese Culture Night at Barclays Center, and fans were given Lin bobbleheads despite his absence from the court.CreditSeth Wenig/Associated Press

“We haven’t really seen what it’s like with everybody healthy on the team,” the Nets’ Joe Harris said. “Where we’re at right now, I don’t know if our record is different if everybody’s healthy, but I will say that the cohesion and the chemistry when everybody’s healthy and playing is obviously better.”

The Nets are 3-9 in the 12 games Lin has played, which is nothing to be too encouraged about, either. Still, he has averaged almost 14 points and 6 assists per game, and his continued absence has been notable in recent contests.

Last Tuesday, the Hawks’ Dennis Schroder scored 19 points and had 10 assists against the Nets and easily outclassed the two point guards collecting the majority of minutes in Lin’s place — Isaiah Whitehead and Spencer Dinwiddie, a December signing from the N.B.A. Development League.

Throughout that game, the Hawks disrupted the Nets’ efforts to set up their half-court offense by trapping and pressuring the team’s guards.

“The point guard’s such a big part of really any offense, any vision,” said Hawks Coach Mike Budenholzer, who had Atkinson on his staff in Atlanta for three years. Without Lin, Budenholzer said, the Nets were clearly suffering.

Two days later, the Nets carried a 6-point lead into the fourth quarter of a home game against the New Orleans Pelicans, before losing, 104-95. Whitehead injured his knee during that game, and with the Nets leading, 92-91, Atkinson took Dinwiddie out with four and a half minutes left. Sean Kilpatrick became the proxy point guard and went on to commit three turnovers as the Nets made one field goal the rest of the way.

Atkinson later said that Whitehead was available to return to the floor but that he liked Kilpatrick’s experience as the game entered the final minutes. But if healthy, Lin probably would have been playing down the stretch.

Lin has not been made available for interviews during his latest rehabilitation. But last Thursday, in an interview with the Chinese television station CCTV-5, Lin said he felt healthy enough to play. Atkinson later responded by saying he loved Lin’s competitiveness and desire to help the team but did not say Lin was ready to return.

When exactly Lin will make it back remains uncertain. But the Nets would like it to be soon.

“He’s certainly going to make the whole team in general perform better,” Marks said. “He’ll certainly give us a little bit of stability out there.”

The best the Nets could do on Sunday in regard to Lin was hand out 10,000 bobbleheads of him wearing a Nets uniform. The real Lin sat on the bench in a white sports jacket with black trim, watching as the Nets gave up more than 130 points in defeat for the second straight game.

Lin’s absence has also kept the Nets from judging what kind of tandem he might make with center Brook Lopez. With the trade deadline approaching next month, Lopez would be an enticing piece to include in a deal — but what if he and Lin could make for an enticing combination?

It is one more vexing question for the Nets in a season that will not even end with a top first-round draft pick, no matter the team’s record. The Boston Celtics have the right to claim the Nets’ slot.

“It’s trying for all of us,” Marks said. “It’s trying for the 15 guys out on the court; it’s trying for everybody who’s involved in it. But, look, we all signed up for this. You’ve got to be positive. You’ve got to have a great attitude through all of this. It’s the big picture.”

Others around the league believe that the Nets can be a different team, when healthy. Rockets Coach Mike D’Antoni, who headed the Knicks during Lin’s quick ascent to N.B.A. sensation in 2012, fondly recalled Lin’s impact on that team during the whimsical run that became known as Linsanity.

“That’s your brains, and he’s the one that’s going to be your motor,” D’Antoni said of Lin’s importance to the Nets. “When he’s not out there, it makes it tough. The league is a lot about injuries. If you can stay injury-free and be a good team, you have a chance. Only a chance.

“But if you’re injured and you don’t have a very good team, you have no chance.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: Lin, Desired Cornerstone, Is Watching Nets Crumble. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe